The good news is, over the past few weeks, I've written and submitted two conference paper proposals, a 7,500-word academic article, and a grant application package. The bad news is (maybe not surprisingly) I am just massively, massively tired. And "massively" is the right word--the exhaustion feels like a tangible weight bearing down on me right now. Last night after I emailed off the application package, I felt pleased with myself for about ten minutes for having gotten it done. Then I went upstairs, started to brush my teeth, and remembered that not only do I have another article to write/submit in the next three weeks, but also a job proposal essay to write in that same time period--for the postdoc I REALLY want!--for which I have...no ideas. Nada. Not one. And I keep thinking, soon, I will think of something! But first I need some sleep....

Gaaahhhhhh. Oh well. In better news, the second episode of the new "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series aired last night, and it was hilarious. I'd been in a really irritable mood (re: tiredness, see above) until 6:30, when the show started. By 6:35, I was laughing really hard, and I felt much better for the rest of the evening. After Thursday night, you can stream that episode here. Do it! You'll be glad you did.

In the meantime, I wrote another two pages of the new short story this morning, and I'm still happy with how it's going at the moment. I have no grand inspirational plans for how it will all come together (re: exhaustion, see above!) but page-by-page, I'm figuring it out pretty naturally and feeling good about it. Patrick and I also just joined an online neo-pro spe fic writers' group, Codex. I've been really missing our Clarion crit group (which slowly disentegrated over the past three years since the workshop, due to Life getting in the way, mostly), and I'm excited about trying another one. We'll see how that goes.

What I'm really tempted to do right now is call off the rest of the afternoon, stick Benny & Joon into the DVD player, and snuggle up with Nika on the couch to veg out for the rest of the day. What I really ought to do is work more on writing the new article. I think I'll compromise and do some pleasant research reading (on the couch, with Nika). Of course, the couch is a dangerous place for me to work right now (re: you-know-what!), but what the heck...I can live dangerously.

On October 27, I am going to breathe such a huge sigh of relief!